Non-Communicable Disease Mental health and Psychosocial support officer (NCD MHPSS officer) - Premiere Urgence Internationale

Première Urgence Internationale (PUI) is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-political, and non-religious international aid organization. Our teams are committed to supporting civilian victims of marginalization and exclusion, natural disasters, wars, and economic collapses, by answering their fundamental needs. Our aim is to provide emergency relief to uprooted people in order to help them recover their dignity and regain self-sufficiency. The association leads an average of 190 projects per year in the following sectors of intervention: food security, health, nutrition, infrastructure, WASH, and economic recovery. PUI is providing assistance to 5 million people in 21 countries – in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe and France in 2017.

PUI started implementing operations in Libya since 2017, so far, PUI is focusing on the health care issue, by providing primary health care (PHC) services to internal displaced populations and their host communities, migrants refugees and asylum seekers  in the eastern cities of the country. PUI is recreating an access to essential package of health care including communicable and non-communicable diseases, medical screening, sexual and reproductive health and psychosocial support interventions via Mobile Health Teams. Furthermore, PUI is reinforcing sensitization, communication and prevention on health care topics within the communities.

PUI is starting a new project aiming to enhance access to quality care for patients suffering from non-communicable diseases at primary health care level. And provision of essential PHC services During emergency health situations .This project will be implementation supposed to provide care pathways for patients including diagnosis, treatment, health education and referrals to public structures in order to follow up on the stabilization of the diseases and to avoid complication. Project location: will be in Cyrenaica Region – Ajdabiya, Benghazi and Al Marj Districts.

This new project is funded by the Centre de crise et de soutien (CDCS) to Libya.

Under the supervision of the Non-Communicable Disease Mentor Medical Doctor (NCD MMD) and in collaboration with Health AM and other NCD medical staff, the MHPSS officer ensures the delivery of mental health and psychosocial support and awareness sessions to NCD Patients for behaviour change, within the NCD intervention areas in Almarj and the urgent interventions in the area of north east of Libya.

MHPSS strategy: participate in proposing the Mental health and psychosocial support approach for the project and adapting tools and existing SOP according to context.

Representation: Represents the association for partners, authorities and local actors involved in the implementation of medical programs.

Coordination and reporting: participate in the coordination process for all activities at the field level and submit activity progress reports to the NCD-MD.

·         Provide mental health and psychosocial support sessions at HCF level either in an individual or group approaches in order to decrease the psychological impact of these chronic diseases.

Individual Psychosocial Counselling:

·         Delivers different types of individual MHPSS sessions (Supportive short-term and longer-term Counseling, PFA), following evidence-based MHPSS in emergencies programs and tools such as the ones developed by the WHO (PM+, Doing What Matters in Times of Stress, etc).

·         Conduct intake and psychosocial assessments of beneficiaries referred by health and protection team.

·         Provide one-on-one counselling sessions to adult beneficiaries suffering from mild to moderate psychological symptoms, by following PUI MHPSS internal framework, SOPs and international guidelines such as the IASC

·         Work with beneficiaries to develop an individualized care plan based on the assessment in line with their own choices, available options, and existing situation.

·         Provide basic support and guidance to family members to help them provide ongoing support to the sever cases at home, according to the situation

Group Counselling Sessions 

·         Provide support group sessions for adult, adolescents and children beneficiaries, by following PUI MHPSS framework, SOPs, international MHPSS guidelines and clinical protocols such as the ones developed by the WHO.

·         Carry out and facilitate different psychoeducational group sessions for targeted groups.

·         Internally refer cases in need of individual counselling

·         Conduct and prepare training sessions for MoH health staff and PUI staff regarding the psychosocial support role in regards to NCD disease and its complementary role beside the medical treatment.

·         Ensure follow up of these sessions, their quality and efficiency. This can be done in either the clinic or community settings;

·         Refer patients if required to secondary mental health services according to the assessment, and ensure referral documents accompany the patients.

·         Follow up with patient’s progress after sessions and ensure after referral retro information collection.

·         Accept referrals from Health Facility staff for patients requiring further PSS support.

·         Organize NCD project staff participation in public health events (Mental health day , for example) in the assigned area of intervention;

·         Give technical advises to health team, MoH staff, and health personals to ensure the better approach in respect to the protocols within his/her field of expertise.

·         Participate regularly to training and or refresher training and or program workshops sessions or information sessions within the NCD team activities.

ENSURE THE REPRESENTATION OF PUI BEFORE HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS

·   Collaborate with local actors involved in the implementation of project’s activities, and ensures good relations are maintained with each of them (consistent with PUI principles of neutrality and independence);

·   Does not act out of his/her role in representing PUI before external actors, and reports any concerns regarding PUI representation (i.e. External actors, journalists, local authorities) to the NCD MMD and Health AM;

·   Under the supervision of the NCD MMD and Health AM, in the event of visits from donors to health facilities, participates actively in the preparation and the smooth organization of the visit when requested;

·         Maintain and promote patient confidentiality regarding patient information and records, and ensured informed consent for appropriate cases and management plans.

·         Report on a daily and weekly basis to the medical doctor Mentor;

·         Analyse the data with the rest of the NCD project team (MMD, Nurses, Pharmacist, health Activity Manager) and take lessons to feed back into future planning (type of messaging, way of conducting sessions etc.);

·         Help in ensuring the quality of the project through reporting follow up, results monitoring, context monitoring, lessons learned and knowledge management, tools development and trainings;

·   Participate to workshops on NCD national protocols.

·   Be aware of the security rules and social and political situation in the field at any time and provide feedback to the NCD MMD, Health activity manager

·   Follow safety and security rules on-base

·   Attend PUI team meetings when required

·   Be aware and apply the Internal Regulations (IR) PUI for the mission

·   Participates in identifying health-related needs in coordination with the NCD MMD and Health AM.

In General, the Collaborator has to remain flexible and to perform any other duties as required for the good care of patients

NB: This job description may be subject to modifications in the future, depending on the evolution of the activities. These modifications will then be defined and discussed between the Collaborator and PUI

Humanitarian

International

Technical (Group sessions)

4 years in MHPSS experience (PFA included)

X

X

Experience with Non Communicable Diseases

Leadership, autonomy, flexibility

Training skills

Strong self-motivation

Writing skills

English

Arabic

X

X

Pack Office (word, power point, excel, etc.)

X

• Strong commitment to humanitarian principles
• Ability to work independently while taking initiatives and showing a sense of responsibility
• Ability to work and manage affairs professionally and with maturity
• A high sense of discretion and integrity when dealing with sensitive protection information
• Ability to withstand pressure
• Ability to provide/structure instructions clearly and concisely both orally and in writing
• Strong commitment to support/develop capacity of staff
• Sense of diplomacy and openness of spirit
• Good brainstorming, analytical and trouble-shooting skills
• Ability to integrate the local environment into operations, in its political, economic and historical dimensions
• Result Oriented and priority management skills
• Organization, rigor and ability to meet deadlines
• Strongly committed, Proactive, Flexible, and adaptable to the needs of the team and organization
• Reliable and punctual